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I am planning on returning to university for a CS PhD after discovering that studying this curriculum is consistently the highlight of my day. Studying CS is th

by ipnon 6y ago

I am planning on returning to university for a CS PhD after discovering that studying this curriculum is consistently the highlight of my day. Studying CS is the most interesting thing I do on a regular basis. I owe my thanks to the authors.

joddystreet 6y ago
what topic would you be pursuing for rnd?
xmprt 6y ago
What field are you going into?
pretzell 6y ago
I'm self-taught too, and strictly interested in research-focused CS masters or PhD programs (as opposed to industry-focused cash-cows). I think I'm mostly interested in studying PL or program synthesis, but I'm also open to other ideas. How did you make that jump from self-taught to qualified for a PhD program?
- throwawaygh 6y ago
  I made this exact jump. The answer, for me, was a four year bachelor's degree. I was a self-taught software engineer, not a self-taught computer scientist. I was writing production code for fairly normal stuff, not proving theorems or implementing research prototypes of new ideas. So YMMV. If you can make it through TAPL or PFPL on your own, then you probably know enough to be useful to some random grad student somewhere. Latch onto an implementation effort, get authorship on a popl/splash/pldi paper or two, and that's probably enough to convince some faculty somewhere to take a chance on you. But most good graduate programs still require a regionally accredited degree. Getting an exception to that rule will likely require a publication record. (Getting into good graduate programs often requires a publication record in any case. I recommend against attending not-good graduate programs.)
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - pretzell 6y ago
    I'm almost halfway through this: https://plfa.github.io/ https://plfa.github.io/ I was auditing a grad class at UT that used this book, then corona hit. Still plan to finish it eventually though I'm not even really sure where I would get started working on an implementation or working on a paper. Are these projects open source?
metrokoi 6y ago
I would like to add this related question to the discussion: what resources/courses/learning techniques do you and others like you who have had an undergraduate Computer Science degree for a few years and are interested in academia but not sure what steps to take next use to continue your study? At some point I would also like to return for a PhD or Master's degree and I would like to keep myself mentally trained, but there are so few resources for higher-level study. All of the online resources I've tried are almost exclusively introductory and don't provide the challenge I crave. Does anyone taken higher-level courses at a local university in their free time just for the experience and to be surrounded by like-minded individuals while having a professional career?
jimhefferon 6y ago
Email them.

by ipnon 6y ago

joddystreet 6y ago

what topic would you be pursuing for rnd?

xmprt 6y ago

What field are you going into?

pretzell 6y ago

I'm self-taught too, and strictly interested in research-focused CS masters or PhD programs (as opposed to industry-focused cash-cows). I think I'm mostly interested in studying PL or program synthesis, but I'm also open to other ideas. How did you make that jump from self-taught to qualified for a PhD program?

throwawaygh 6y ago
I made this exact jump. The answer, for me, was a four year bachelor's degree. I was a self-taught software engineer, not a self-taught computer scientist. I was writing production code for fairly normal stuff, not proving theorems or implementing research prototypes of new ideas. So YMMV. If you can make it through TAPL or PFPL on your own, then you probably know enough to be useful to some random grad student somewhere. Latch onto an implementation effort, get authorship on a popl/splash/pldi paper or two, and that's probably enough to convince some faculty somewhere to take a chance on you. But most good graduate programs still require a regionally accredited degree. Getting an exception to that rule will likely require a publication record. (Getting into good graduate programs often requires a publication record in any case. I recommend against attending not-good graduate programs.)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- pretzell 6y ago
  I'm almost halfway through this: https://plfa.github.io/ https://plfa.github.io/ I was auditing a grad class at UT that used this book, then corona hit. Still plan to finish it eventually though I'm not even really sure where I would get started working on an implementation or working on a paper. Are these projects open source?

metrokoi 6y ago

I would like to add this related question to the discussion: what resources/courses/learning techniques do you and others like you who have had an undergraduate Computer Science degree for a few years and are interested in academia but not sure what steps to take next use to continue your study? At some point I would also like to return for a PhD or Master's degree and I would like to keep myself mentally trained, but there are so few resources for higher-level study. All of the online resources I've tried are almost exclusively introductory and don't provide the challenge I crave. Does anyone taken higher-level courses at a local university in their free time just for the experience and to be surrounded by like-minded individuals while having a professional career?

jimhefferon 6y ago

Email them.